RealtyTrac: Foreclosure Crisis “Well Past It’s Peak”

There’s still some way to go but all the signs are that the foreclosure crisis is finally coming to an end. Latest figures from RealtyTrac show that foreclosure filings have continued their downward trend, falling to the lowest level since April 2007 at the end of last month.

Foreclosure filings – which encompass bank repossessions, default notices and scheduled auctions – fell by 28% last January compared to one year earlier, reports CNN Money.

Daren Blomquist, spokesperson for RealtyTrac, said that there was every reason to be optimistic:

“We’re now well past the peak of the foreclosure crisis. It’s likely that by this time next year, we’ll start to see 2005-type, pre-crisis numbers again.”

That might seem like a slightly optimistic prediction from Blomquist, considering that foreclosure levels remain twice as high as they were in 2005, but then again, the rate at which they are slowing down suggests he might not be too far off the mark. Already, bank repossessions have fallen to half of the record-breaking 102,134 set in September 2010, and things are only going to get better from here on in as banks race through their backlog of underwater homes.

One of the big reasons for the drop in foreclosures was due to new legislation in California, which gives borrowers more protection against losing their homes when they default on their repayments. As a result, California saw a 62% drop in foreclosure numbers in January, meaning that the state no longer leads the country in number of foreclosure filings, for the first time since 2007. Instead, that rather dubious honor now falls to Florida with 29,800 filings last month, followed by Nevada and Illinois.

Blomquist reminds us that the foreclosure crisis isn’t over yet – 26 states actually saw the number of foreclosure auctions rise – but things are definitely a lot better than they were just a couple of years ago.

Comments

Have to be blunt, but someone is blowing smoke up something else. “slightly optimistic prediction” dreaming is more like it. Look at the article you previously posted. Hedge fund buys 10,000 homes for rentals. Btw, I did post the source for that article in the comment section. Further, review the article, he purchased 10k AND he already owns more. Blackstone, the largest U.S. private real estate owner and the only firm with more homes than Hughes, has spent $3 billion on rentals, Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate said today at a Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum in Miami. Blackstone said last month it spent $2.7 billion on 17,000 properties, accelerating purchases as prices rose faster than anticipated. Further, transactions involving investors jumped 75 percent in November from a year earlier in 25 metropolitan areas tracked by Radar Logic Inc. It’s a market that could total 12 million homes, JPMorgan analysts led by Anthony Paolone wrote in a note last month. Additionally, watch the Hedge Funds: -Colony Capital LLC, a Santa Monica, California-based firm headed by Thomas Barrack, has bought more than 8,000 homes. -Citigroup extended a $245 million line of credit in October to Waypoint Homes, an Oakland, California-based firm that owns more than 3,000 rental homes and expects to have 10,000 by the end of 2013. On and on it goes…. this is why the prices have gone up, and inventory has gone down. Further are the limits on Banks loans loss, the Feds buying Mortgage Notes supplied by the largest Banks…. Foreclosure crisis at the end or even half way there…. Not on your life.